Formation damage involves undesirable alteration of the initial characteristics of a producing formation, typically by exposure to drilling fluids. The water or solid particles in the drilling fluids, or both, tend to decrease the pore volume and effective permeability of the producible formation in the near-wellbore region. There may be at least three possible mechanisms at work. First, solid particles from the drilling fluid may physically plug or bridge across flowpaths in the porous formation. Second, when water contacts certain clay minerals in the formation, the clay typically swells, thus increasing in volume and in turn decreasing the pore volume. Third, chemical reactions between the drilling fluid and the formation rock and fluids may precipitate solids or semisolids that plug pore spaces.
Reduced hydrocarbon production can result from reservoir damage when a drilling mud deeply invades the subterranean reservoir. It will also be understood that the drilling fluid, e.g. oil-based mud, is deposited and concentrated at the borehole face and partially inside the formation. Many operators are interested in improving formation clean up and removing the cake or plugging material and/or improving formation damage after drilling into reservoirs with oil-based muds.
Drilling fluids used in the drilling of subterranean oil and gas wells along with other drilling fluid applications and drilling procedures are known. In rotary drilling there are a variety of functions and characteristics that are expected of drilling fluids, also known as drilling muds, or simply “muds”.
Drilling fluids are typically classified according to their base fluid. In water-based muds, solid particles are suspended in water or brine. Oil can be emulsified in the water which is the continuous phase. Brine-based drilling fluids, of course are a water-based mud (WBM) in which the aqueous component is brine. Oil-based muds (OBM) are the opposite or inverse. Solid particles are suspended in oil, and water or brine is emulsified in the oil and therefore the oil is the continuous phase. Oil-based muds can be either all-oil based or water-in-oil macroemulsions, which are also called invert emulsions. In oil-based mud, the oil may consist of any oil that may include, but is not limited to, diesel, mineral oil, esters, or alpha-olefins. OBMs as defined herein also include synthetic-based fluids or muds (SBMs) which are synthetically produced rather than refined from naturally-occurring materials. SBMs often include, but are not necessarily limited to, olefin oligomers of ethylene, esters made from vegetable fatty acids and alcohols, ethers and polyethers made from alcohols and polyalcohols, paraffinic, or aromatic, hydrocarbons alkyl benzenes, terpenes and other natural products and mixtures of these types.
It would be desirable if compositions and methods could be devised to aid and improve the ability to clean up damage and difficulties caused to the wellbore, the formation, equipment in the wellbore (for instance, stuck pipe), and to remove and/or resolve the problem more completely and easily, without causing additional damage to the formation, wellbore and/or equipment.